Author | Percival Everett |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Novel |
Publisher | Doubleday [1] |
Publication date | 2024 |
Publication place | United States |
Pages | 320 |
ISBN | 9780385550369 |
Preceded by | Dr. No: A Novel |
James is a novel by author Percival Everett published by Doubleday in 2024. The novel is a re-imagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain but told from the perspective of Huckleberry's friend on his travels, Jim, who is an escaped slave. The novel won the 2024 Kirkus Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction.
James is loosely based on Mark Twain's classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . Some of the early scenes of Everett's novel closely follow Huckleberry Finn, but as the two separate and Jim goes off on his own picaresque "adventures", the tone turns more serious as it explores issues of rape, murder, beatings and racism.
According to Book Marks, the book received "rave" reviews based on nineteen critic reviews with seventeen being "rave" and one being "positive" and one being "pan". [2] On Bookmarks May/June 2024 issue, a magazine that aggregates critic reviews of books, the book received a (4.00 out of 5) based on critic reviews with a critical summary saying, "Critics quibbled a little over the novel's ending, but, as the New York Times concludes, "James is the rarest of exceptions. It should come bundled with Twain's novel". [3]
Writing for The New York Times , Dwight Garner praised the novel as more successful than many re-imaginings of famous classics, stating, "What sets 'James' above Everett's previous novels, as casually and caustically funny as many are, is that here the humanity is turned up — way up. This is Everett's most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful." [4] Writing for The Guardian , Anthony Cummins stated: "James offers page-turning excitement but also off-kilter philosophical picaresque". [5]
A finalist for the 2024 Booker Prize, [6] James won the 2024 Kirkus Prize for Fiction, [7] as well as the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction. [8]
Feature film rights in the novel were acquired in 2024 by Universal Pictures, with Amblin Entertainment for production, and Steven Spielberg as executive producer. Taika Waititi was in early talks as director. [9]
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a picaresque novel by American author Mark Twain that was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." Twain's novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." He also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) and cowrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.
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